When the Led Zeppelins and Black Sabbaths of the world were nearing a decade of writing, recording and touring they obviously got tired and bored. I mean, how can you not get bored playing Iron Man night after night for the better part of a decade? So what to do? Have the younger, more invigorated group of musicians push the metal genre forward. And that’s exactly what happened. A tidal wave of bands emerged from England as they did in the 60’s. However, this time around unlike the majority of the British Invasion bands, they were metal as a mutha! Injecting the attitude of punk along with it creating new vitality to a genre that seemed to be fading. Disco and pop thought they were going into the 80’s with the dominant commercial leg up. Then the New Wave of Heavy Metal came and smashed all top 40 predictions and expectations. Making metal the most dominant form of music for roughly 12 years. Band such as Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Raven, Saxon, Tygers of Pan Tang, Motorhead, Tank and yes even Def Leppard. Yes, they started out in the NWOBHM before softening up a bit, causing them to become the most successful band of the movement. Although Iron Maiden is a close second without compromising any integrity. Not that Def Leppard completely sold out or anything.
I’d say that NWOBHM is the purest form of metal. Judas Priest is the perfect example. Is there a more pure heavy metal band than the Priest? I don’t think so. They are the metal. They’re the sun and all other genres in metal kind of revolve around Priest and the like in some way. The influence of the movement is astonishing. It’s affected heavy music almost more than anything. It’s affected pop music in a major way as well. What’s also great about NWOBHM is the general all around musicianship. Alright, Lemmy certainly isn’t the best bass player in the world and well, his singing is great for Motohead. But it’s not like he soars with Halford and Dickenson. They made up for it in badasserey though. But other than that, there’s a general sense of high quality musicianship in these bands. They set a standard of live show energy when bands like KISS were falling off. They kept the genre alive. It would be dead without these bands. And for that we’re eternally grateful.
Raven is a perfect example of BNWOHM without being too on the nose.
Def Leppard is the most commercially successful of the bunch. Incread live energy.
Judas Priest – The purest heavy metal.
